The real estate numbers speak otherwise

Contrary to popular belief, recently released real estate numbers suggest that the property market is not slowing down, Infact it is still rising. I am really surprised and not really sure if these numbers reflect the reality of situation.

Every property purchased has to be registered with property registration office. The following data was collated from the office of the state’s inspector-general of registration and stamp duty.

PROPERTIES REGISTERED DURING JAN-MARCH

City

2006

2007

% growth

2008

% growth

Mumbai

40,803

41,012

0.51

44,232

7.85

Thane

47,155

53,838

14.17

60,551

12.46

Pune

70,395

68,004

-3.39

79,973

17.60

Nagpur

24,529

25,937

5.74

27,514

6.08

Nashik

21,087

23,176

9.90

28,409

22.50

The comparison of first three months’ data in the last three years also shows that registrations have gone up substantially. The number of registrations increased by 13.54 per cent during January to March this year compared with the same period in 2007, while it increased by a mere 4 per cent during January-March in 2007 compared with the year-ago period.Nearly 240,679 registrations took place in five cities — Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur — during the January-March period in 2008, a 10.53 per cent increase over 217,743 between October and December in 2007. Registrations were even lesser in the July-September last year at 208,205.

Specifically the Pune Market seems to be pretty strong with a growth of close to 18%.

Although, the numbers show growth, it may not reflect the exact current situation as registrations come with a lag of 3-4 months after the deal is signed. So property registered between January and March 2008 may have been sold and bought between October and December last year, and may not necessarily reflect the actual trend.

I have been following Indian real estate market closely for last year or so and from what I see on ground, the market has sure slowed down. Infact, some reports published earlier this month actually attest the real estate slowdown.

The Builders though seem to be quite adamant. I have not actually come across any transactions that have happened at lower prices than earlier. Even the builders in Pune have been quite adamant about their pricing. Shashank Paranjape, managing director of Pune-based Paranjape Schemes says,: “Though sales have been steady, prices have gone up by 10 per cent due to high demand.”

We will have to wait for another couple of months for new numbers to know which direction the market is heading.

Arun Prabhudesai is founder / chief editor at trak.in. He jumped the Entrepreneurship bandwagon in early 2008 after a long 13 year stint in I.T Industry. You can follow him on twitter @trakin and Facebook.Arun’s Google+ Profile

Real Estate in Pune is on a roll. There are many reasons for the upward trend in the Real estate in Pune. Pune has been thriving as a global city with millions of population from all over the country. The infrastructure development and the job opportunities in Pune have grown many folds in the last few years. Pune is acclaimed as the hub of premiere educational institutions. The educational facilities in Pune attract thousands of domestic and foreign students to the lap of this great city renowned as the Queen of the Deccan.

Contrary to popular belief, the real estate market in Pune continues to thrive despite the rise in interest rates and credit crunch. This is allegedly driven by speculative buying. To actually get a feel of the property market, you could approach builders and enquire aboutÂ current rates.

It is a common perception that real estate never goes downÂ and I have seen in myself in San Diego CA. Three years back, people were getting crazy to buy houses at mad prices. Now, the same houses are sold at 40/50% off their peak values.
A lot of my friends told me that in San Diego, house prices would never go down and they cited reasons like:
1) San Diego has best weather of all of USA
2) Scarcity of land ( ocean on one side/desert on another side )
3) More and more people are wanting to live in San Diego.

Fast forward to June-2008, houses prices are in steep decline because everyone seemed to overlook fundamentals of economics: whatever goes up irrationally must come down to meet fundamental economics reality.

I am sure same thing would happen in India also. Infact, I am already seeing the begining of the crash: slowing sales.

Always remember: Real state prices are very very sticky down the road. Also, in India, real estate prices are brought up by speculation not by real demand. I have lot of friends/agents who bought real estate in India not to live in byt to cash out after some time.
When Indian stock market was trading at 21000, no one would have thought in their wildest dreams that it wouldÂ trade water in 13000s. Here are we not at 13,7000s and I am sure it would go down till 12000s.

But usually ignorants always say: This time it is different in real estate and hence it won’t go down. if you look at historical prices, this thing has happened again and again and would happen this time also, only the scale would be much greater this time.
The real estate market in USA is the best example.
Upon this, we have the biggest credit crunch and the worst is yet to come in 2009. Do have any ideas how much money banks are writing down from their books ? it is in scale of billions of dollars.. For Bear Stern: 100 year old company lost 90% of its share value in one single day and had to be rescued by Fed.

BTW: I bought a property in New Delhi 3 years back and pretty sure it would go down in value with time..

Want to invest in real estate? Has the recent crisis put you off? Donâ€™t worry, the sector is still swinging. Real estate will always be in demand, and now there are more ways than one to make it pay.Your elders always drilled it into you that youâ€™ve got it made when you can buy or build your own home. This is one injunction kids all over the world are given, regardless of culture. The solidity that a piece of land gives is a great comfort. Despite the jitters the market gave you after the â€˜sub-prime contagion,â€™ real estate is still hot. All the worldâ€™s a village now, and if you would rather avoid U.S. real estate for whatever reason, invest in international real estate, by all means. Do it through real estate stocks.The first way to do this is invest in property development companies. These guys issue IPOs, and then are traded on the secondary market. You can pick them up from either place.The second way is through Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs.If your country has recognized real estate investment trusts (REITs), these are safer than either of the previous two options. Real estate stocks are not exactly property, but give you market beating returns that are real enough. Do you agree? What have you invested in?For more view- realtydigest.blogspot.com

The fantasy that real markets across India will crash and somehow people will be able to buy flats at a discount of 40-50% of the current prices is pure nonsense. But it is getting very popular among a section of frustrated would be home buyers. People need to understand that during these times, owning a piece of real estate is one of the best hedges against raging inflation.

All stories of real estate crash are highly exaggerated. In these times, if you are without a piece of real estate, you are missing a valuable hedge against raging inflation. Be careful and selective, but don’t sit out of the realty market.

These are misleading numbers. This data constitutes all residential, commercial, rental, sales ..etc inclusive numbers and thats why they are misleading. This data does not provide accurtae information. Even business atndard published this data but readers lashed out at substandard quality of such news by the site. For example, above article says registrations increased in Mumbai but recent data published in express says otherwise. Read it on http://www.indianexpress.com/story/317406.html.

I think the phenomenon of the slowdown has grown to a worldwide problem. As a <a href="http://westtorontorealtor.com">Toronto realtor</a> I used to follow the situation of the real estate market in other countries, I would like to tell you that the figures showing the current sales in Canada are ambiguous as well. I think that nobody of us are sure whether we should wait a sudden increase in sales or an even deeper recession.